4th of July
by birdharp
Summary: The Rizzoli-Isles clan spends the 4th of July weekend on vacation at a beach house in Florida. I meant for this to be a one shot, but I got a little carried away, and a little impatient to post it. So, it will have two chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Maura Isles hasn't spent this much time staring at the inside of a toilet bowl since she was young, single, and had contracted malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa. Her supervisors had shipped her back to the states with a list of medications and a pro-rated stipend for the time she spent working in the hospital, there. She had recovered alone in the quiet of her Boston apartment, her deadly (and charming) combination of humility and stubbornness stopping her from telling anyone she knew that she was sick. She had emerged a few weeks later, and nobody could tell she was any worse for wear.

But that was a lifetime ago. Now, the smell of bleach seeps into her nostrils as she dry heaves and coughs into the porcelain bowl. She closes her eyes and rests her forehead on her arm.

"Babe?" Jane calls from the bedroom.

Maura groans into her lap.

Jane saunters in, sighing. "Again? I knew we should have stayed home." She kneels behind her wife and rubs her palm around her back.

"It's okay. There's nothing left," Maura croaks. "The norovirus should leave my system in the next 24 to 48 hours, and then I'll-" She interrupts herself to heave into the toilet again.

"Shh..." Jane takes the hair tie from her wrist and pulls her wife's hair into a loose ponytail.

Dylan creeps on her tip-toes through the doorway, and neither of her parents see or hear her. She stands in a pink tankini with a frilly skirt that circles her little hips. Her bed hair is pressed flat on one side, and is a forest of tangled curls on the other. In a burst of energy, she leaps forward and squats next to Maura.

"HOLY-" Jane jumps.

A devilish grin sneaks onto Dylan's face.

"You scared me, you little ninja!"

"I know. Why is Mommy still sick?" Dylan's places her hand next to Jane's on Maura's back and mirrors the circular motion.

Maura's voice is weak. "Viral gastroenteritis typically takes a few days to pass through the system."

Dylan blinks at Jane.

"She'll be better soon," Jane says.

"But I want to bury Mommy in the sand."

"I know," Jane mirrors her daughter's pout. "I want to bury Mommy in the sand, too, but she needs to rest again today. Do you know what, though?"

"What?"

"Nana will be here later and I bet she'll let you bury _her_ in the sand."

Dylan's entire face rises for a second and then immediately falls again. "But I want to do _Mommy_. She hasn't even gotten to wear her pretty new bathing suit yet."

Maura lifts her head off the rim of the toilet and turns to face her girls. Dylan curls into her lap and fingers a button of the silk pajama top. Maura links her fingers around Dylan's bottom and looks at Jane over the mess of curls.

"You should take her. I'll be okay. I still have that stack of articles that I didn't get through yesterday. And Angela will probably be exhausted from the plane ride when she gets in. I don't want to make her take Dylan as soon as she arrives."

"You sure?" Jane asks. "Can you eat yet?"

"Not yet. Maybe by the evening."

"Can we do anything for you before we head out?"

"I really should be drinking an electrolyte solution with sodium and potassium."

Jane blinks.

"Pedialyte."

"One Pedialyte, coming right up." Jane stands and holds out her hands. She lifts Dylan into the air, her legs flailing for a second before landing on the ground.

Dylan turns and holds her hands out to Maura, the way Jane did to her. Maura smiles, holds Dylan's little hands and lifts herself into a standing position, with Jane's hand eventually grasping her elbow.

Dylan groans, gasps, bends over out of breath. "You're heavy, Mommy."

Maura smiles as she turns to the sink, "And you're _strong,_ little lady_._"

* * *

The sun is high the sky by the time Maura feels well enough to get out of bed again. She finds the Pedialyte in the refrigerator door and settles into the window chair in the master bedroom, where memories overwhelm her senses. It was near this time of year the first time she brought Jane here, to the beach house. She leans her head against the glass, feeling the warmth from the sun on her face, and closes her eyes to the memory.

_Maura placed her cell phone on her desk between where she and Jane sat. "A pipe burst in my beach house. I have to catch a plane to Miami Beach, Florida, as soon as possible. I'd hate to call in Pike, but there's really not-"_

_"Wait. You have a beach house in Florida?" Jane's face went blank._

_"Yes."_

_"Why have you never mentioned this before?"_

_"You never asked. I rent it out most of the year. It's an excellent source of supplemental income." And then a thought crossed Maura's mind. "Do you want to come with me?"_

_"To your beach house in Florida?"_

_"Why do you keep saying it like that?"_

_"Because you-" Jane paused as she registered Maura's original question. "You're inviting me?"_

_"Yes. It could be fun! Plus, you know about plumbing, which would really help me. I haven't actually been down since I bought the place a couple of years ago. And when was the last time you took vacation?"_

_"Um. Never?"_

_"Precisely."_

_They had arrived to three inches of dirty water soaking the entire first floor of the building. The floors needed to be stripped and some of the cabinets and furniture needed to be replaced. The walls needed to be dried and painted. It was a project, but Maura was determined to finish it within the week—and when Maura was determined, she always succeeded._

_The house was between renters at the time so Maura and Jane stayed in the master room upstairs, which had its own functioning bathroom and an ocean view. The two women spent a week in that beach house. Days dragged. They talked to contractors, stared at fabric and color swatches, consulted interior designers, supervised plumbers—all things that would have Jane beating herself over the head if it weren't for the nights, which fueled them both._

_During their nights at the beach house, hours passed in minutes. They explored each other with a kind of abandonment they had never felt before—without the exhaustion from work, the stress of responsibility, the pressures from family, the fear of murderers roaming the city. They strolled the little beach town, hand-in-hand. They ate somewhere different every night—from the fancy fish restaurant on the end of the pier to the taco stand on the corner, which served its food in greasy paper containers._

_The night before they left to fly back to Boston, the women had walked down to the beach. The night was chilly and the only people they passed for ten minutes was a middle-aged couple, hand-in-hand, just like them. Jane gave Maura her jacket, but a few minutes later, dared her to put her feet in the water. They left their shoes in the sand and ventured into the Atlantic. Waves crashed against their calves and Maura clung to Jane like without her the tide would whisk her away. Jane held her tight. Together they stood, knee-deep in the ocean, and kissed like it was the last night of the world, like nothing in the future would matter the way they mattered to each other right then, that night._

Maura remembers it, now, as she squints her eyes into the sunlight blur of a beach from two stories high. She remembers sitting on the window seat, after hours of love-making, and looking at the stars while Jane read out loud to her from the bed. She remembers the sleepy rasp in Jane's voice as she read the words, "_I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love." _She remembers Jane tossing the book aside after reading that sentence, and begging Maura back to the bed. She remembers thinking her life couldn't get any more perfect than it was in that moment.

After a couple of minutes, Maura makes out a tiny Jane and an even tinier Dylan, standing hand-in-hand near the water. Jane is wearing a navy blue, sporty two-piece Maura had found at the sporting goods store, and Dylan is wearing a Red Sox baseball cap with her pink tankini.

Maura watches as Dylan tugs Jane's hand away from the water. A wave crashes in and Jane holds her feet in place, Dylan pulling with all her might, her little feet digging into the sand. When the water is inches from their toes, Jane gives in and sprints up the shore with her daughter. Dylan screams and Jane laughs as they approach the water to do it all over again.

She had thought her life was perfect—that it couldn't get better.

She had been wrong.

* * *

Down on the beach, it's the kind of hot that they only hear about in Boston. Sweltering humidity has Jane and Dylan popping grapes and downing Gatorade like they're going out of style. By the time the shadows lean East, Jane is dehydrated and exhausted from the heat and the sun, and the six-year-old perpetually tugging on her hand.

"Why don't you build a castle while Mama lies down for a little bit?"

"Okay!"

Jane watches her daughter dump the plastic toys into a pile a few feet from their towels, and then collapses with her eyes closed.

It feels like only minutes have passed before Dylan is poking her arm with a nerf ball. "Mama? I wanna play catch!"

"Why don't you ask that little boy who was playing down the beach if he wants to play catch with you?" Jane asks with her eyes closed.

"What little boy?"

"The one who was telling you about the sand crabs."

"Oh. They went home already. Will you play catch with me?"

Jane groans, and opens one eye, wondering how long she had been asleep for. "Okay, baby. Just give me a minute to wake up."

"Farther!" Dylan is yelling.

She is the most coordinated six-year-old Jane has ever met, but she would be lying if she wasn't afraid her daughter would miss this next throw.

"Hands up, okay? Triangle!" she urges again.

"Triangle!" Dylan yells back. She jumps up and down and then holds the triangle over her head and waits for her mom to toss the ball

And Jane does it. She releases the nerf ball from behind her head and squints into the sun. The ball lobs between the two of them. Its trajectory twists a little in the wind, and Dylan refocuses underneath it. The ball hits her fingers, but slips right through them. It smacks her in the face before bouncing to the floor.

Jane pauses, trying not to react—a lesson in "not freaking out," which she had learned the hard way.

Dylan looks at her, eyes wide and filling.

Jane walks towards her daughter. "You okay, sweetie? That was a long one. You did a really good triangle."

Dylan sniffs. "Ow. That hurt." She covers her mouth with her hands as a couple of tears fall.

Jane plops onto her knees so the two are eye-level. "I know, baby. You're being really strong right now." She pulls Dylan's hands from her mouth and asks, "Can you move your lips?"

Dylan makes a fishy face, and Jane can't help but smile. "Can you stick out your tongue?"

Dylan obliges, and then finally grins. And when she grins, Jane's jaw drops. Dylan's face sobers. "What?"

"Um. Wait. Smile again?"

Dylan smiles all lop-sided and says through her teeth, "Do my teeth look pretty?"

"Did you have a loose tooth?"

"Ya!" Dylan says. "This one!" She pops her tongue through the gap in her teeth, and her eyes widen. "Is it gone?! Did it fall out?!"

Jane is laughing, "Yeah, Dill! You just lost your first tooth!" She holds up her hands and Dylan high-fives them.

Jane stands and combs the sand for a minute while Dylan hops from foot to foot, dancing in a little circle, saying, "I lost a too-oooth, I lost a too-oooth."

Jane mutters to herself, "Oh, man, your mom's gunna kill me."

* * *

The front door swishes open, and a pattering of footsteps follows.

"Shhh," Maura can hear Jane saying. "Indoor voices, okay? Mommy might be sleeping."

"Okay," Dylan whispers, not so quietly.

Maura closes her eyes and waits for them to come say hello, but falls asleep and awakes to clinks of metal on metal in the kitchen. She hears Dylan humming. She sits up in bed.

A few minutes later, her girls appear in the doorway. Dylan climbs onto the bed and sidles up to Maura with her lips clamped shut. Jane follows closely with a tray of food.

"Hi, sweetie," Maura says. She kisses the top of her daughter's head. "Did you have a good time at the beach?"

Dylan nods vigorously, and then can't take it anymore and bursts into laughter, exposing the gap in her teeth.

Maura's mouth drops and her eyes widen. "You lost a tooth!" she exclaims.

"Mama knocked it out!"

Jane slaps her palm to her forehead, cringing. "Dylan! You weren't supposed to say that part!"

Dylan giggles so hard that she clutches her stomach and falls over. She rolls down the bed, away from Maura.

"Wait. What?" Maura asks. "Please tell me I heard that incorrectly."

Jane shakes her head. "It was the S-T-U-P-I-D nerf ball. We went long, and… it was a little too long."

"I know what you spelled," Dylan says from the foot of the bed. "You spelled—"

"Dylan," Maura interrupts her. "Sit up, please. Let Mommy look at your mouth."

She walks on her knees back to Maura and opens her mouth, bouncing a little, impatiently.

"I already looked at it," Jane says. "She's fine. She didn't even taste the blood, and she barely cried."

"How much blood was there?"

"A tiny amount. Like, almost none."

Dylan makes a grunting noise with her mouth open and Maura drops her hands from Dylan's jaw. She places a sucking kiss on her daughter's left cheek and releases her.

"Do I get to see the tooth fairy now?" Dylan asks.

"Uhhh…" Jane looks at Maura.

Maura looks at Jane. She widens her eyes and lifts one shoulder as if to say, "I don't know?"

"Well," Jane says. She sits on the edge of the bed, and at the same time she sits, the air pressure in the room shifts as the front door opens downstairs. "Nana's here!" Jane yells.

Dylan squeals, "Nana!" Her parents watch her run out of the room.

"Close call," Jane says.

"We'll have to discuss that one later," Maura agrees.

Jane hums and takes in her wife for the first time all day. She rests her hand on Maura's duvet-covered knee. "How are you feeling?"

"Better. I've kept the Pedialyte down, and I slept for a few hours."

"Good job!" Jane acts overly excited.

Maura smiles. "Thank you. It's a good thing my body is otherwise healthy, or it could have taken me up to twice as long to heal."

"Think you can handle some soup?"

Maura's eyes travel to the tray of food. Soup, a glass of water, a napkin, a spoon, and a little purple flower.

"Dill picked the flower. And stirred the pot."

Maura smiles. "Thank you. I'll try to sip the soup."

Jane leans in for a kiss, but Maura puts her finger between their lips. Jane grunts and follows the finger to her wife's cheek. But she doesn't stop there. After the one on Maura's cheek, she moves up to her forehead, and around to her other cheek, down to her chin, up to her nose, back to the cheek. And again. And again. And again.

Maura closes her eyes and soaks them in. She can hear Dylan talking excitedly to Angela, downstairs.

"I miss you," Jane mutters. She rubs her thumb across Maura's cheek, and then drops it to her hand.

"I miss you, too," Maura says. "When I'm better, and I mean completely better, I promise to let you exchange whatever bodily fluids you would like with me."

"Yeah?"

Maura crosses her finger over her heart and kisses it, the way Dylan taught them to do when they wanted to make a promise. She holds her hand up, and Jane plants her lips on her wife's fingertip.

"JANIE! MAURA! WHERE ARE YOU TWO?"

* * *

"You HAVE to give her money from the tooth fairy!"

Jane makes a shushing noise. "Ma, you're gunna wake her up. Just. Shh."

Angela says a little quieter, "I'm sorry, but you just have to. You don't want her growing up without any sense of imagination or—or, fantasy."

Jane had been doing all of the arguing up until this point in the conversation, but Maura finally speaks up from where she sits nestled into the couch. "Dylan has a great imagination, and I don't think telling her that fairies don't actually exist will suddenly stop her from day-dreaming, or being creative, or fantasizing. Besides, I never believed in the tooth fairy—or Santa Claus, for that matter—and I turned out just fine." She holds up her hands, as if to prove a point.

"Mmm, debatable," Jane says under her breath.

Maura throws her a look.

Jane winks back. "But I agree with you. We should tell her the truth. Finding out the tooth fairy wasn't real was traumatizing for me. It's better she find out now, before she gets her hopes up."

"She already has her hopes up!" Angela says. "When I put her to bed it was all tooth fairy this, and tooth fairy that."

"Ma, you didn't…"

"I didn't what? What was I supposed to say? Sorry, honey, the tooth fairy doesn't exist?"

"Well," Jane and Maura exchange a look, "Yeah, actually. That would have been perfect."

"Or," Maura adds, "You could have explained that one of the origins of the myth of the tooth fairy was to provide comfort for the child in his or her time of loss. And then you could have made sure that she understood that another tooth was going to grow in soon so that she didn't need to worry..."

"That's depressing," Angela says with a straight face. "And it's too late now. Go give her a few dollars."

"Ma, please don't speak to Maura like that."

"I'm just being honest. But, fine then." Angela turns to Jane. "You go give her a few dollars."

Jane looks over her mother's shoulder at Maura.

Angela is already digging through her purse, which sits on the kitchen counter. "Here. One of you, just go do it. If you won't, I will."

Maura lifts her hands in surrender. She had learned to pick and choose her battles with Angela, and this was not one she was willing to lose sleep over.


	2. Chapter 2

The morning washes over Maura's mind in waves. Usually the first awake, she is surprised to feel cool sheets when she stretches her arm towards Jane's side of the bed. She measures her degree of illness as she brushes her teeth, washes her face, pulls her robe over her silk pajamas. By the time she appears in the kitchen, she has determined that she doesn't need to spend the day in bed, but should relax for as long as her family will let her.

Dylan is at the table with a soggy bowl of cereal and a wad of rolled-up dollar bills in front her. She is talking animatedly to Angela, who sits across from her. Jane is leaning against the counter with her own bowl of cereal, already dressed and ready for the day.

Jane watches her wife emerge from the bedroom and saunter to her. "Hey, sleepy-head." She sets the bowl on the counter and opens her arms. Maura falls into them, nestling her face into her wife's chest. She feels cool lips on her forehead, and hands rubbing her back. They stand still, in a tight embrace.

"I am very hungry," Maura murmurs into the warmth of the skin and fresh clothes against her cheek. She breathes in linen smells and… Jane.

"Cereal?"

"Maybe… a small bowl of oatmeal. I should go easy on my stomach for a few days."

"Your wish is my command."

But neither of the women breaks the embrace. Dylan's voice is high-pitched as she tells Angela about the seagulls at the beach, and how one had swooped on a piece of bread near their towels yesterday.

"How many more hours?" Jane says. Her chin rests atop her wife's head.

"Hmm?"

"How many more hours until the thing leaves your system?"

"The virus? Twenty-four."

"But you said twenty-four to forty-eight yesterday."

"Thus the twenty-four hours which are now left."

Jane sighs. "Why didn't you just say forty-eight? I thought I would get to kiss you this morning."

Maura senses the teasing in Jane's voice, but also a hint of genuine sadness. She leans back to look up at her wife, arms still clamped around each other.

Jane's eyes are hopeful.

Maura kisses the bottom of her wife's chin. She exhales heat into the space between her jaw and throat, and then begins a trail of loving to her deltoid.

"Maur," Jane whispers, her eyes on the dining room table, where Dylan is now standing on her chair, milk dripping from the spoon in her hand. "You trying to get me worked up and not do anything about it?"

"How do you know," Maura says into Jane's shirt collar, "that I'm not going to do anything about it?"

"Because my mother is letting Dill make a mess, and I know first-hand how much those carpets cost."

"What?" Maura looks over her shoulder just as, somewhere on the other side of the house, the front door unlocks and swings open. Rubber soles squeak on the hardwood floor as a series of male voices echoes down the hall.

Jane and Maura sigh into each other-one last long hug, bracing for the chaos that would be sure to follow. The 4th of July party at their beach house had seemed like a great idea—Maura's idea—but now, as she watches her family emerge from the threshold, she finds herself wishing it were just herself and her two girls. Her own little family.

Tommy leads the crowd, followed closely by a pre-pubescent, sullen-looking TJ. Frankie is next, hand-in-hand with a dair-haired woman they'd never met before. All four are bogged down by various duffel bags and beach accessories with store tags still hanging off them.

Various greetings and hugging ensue. Maura is sure to be careful of physical contact, explaining that she is getting over a bout of viral gastroenteritis.

"Gross," Tommy says, and punches TJ in the shoulder. "You hear that, kid? Stay away from Auntie Maura. She's got veral gasterotomous."

"Gross," Tommy laughs with his father.

Frankie introduces his girlfriend as Jillian. Jane holds out her hand and Jillian takes it slowly, her blue eyes jumping around Jane's body.

"Uh… I d-… wow."

Maura watches as the woman in front of Jane blushes, stuttering over her words.

"Oh, come on," Frankie says beneath his breath. "I told you my sister was a lesbian!"

"Yeah," Jillian says, slowly regaining composure. "You didn't tell me she was _gorgeous_."

Jane clears her throat and drops Jillian's hand. She says, "Uh, thanks… Jillian," and then puts her hand on Maura's lower back. "This is my wife, Maura."

Maura smiles and nods, and lets herself lean into Jane's side, suddenly feeling possessive.

"Nice to meet you," Jillian says to Maura, and then turns back to Jane. "No, but really. Like, model gorgeous. Your cheek bones are like, oh my god exquisite." Jillian turns to Frankie. "I mean, baby, you're really cute, but your sister is beautiful."

The two siblings and Maura stand in awkward silence. Jane clears her throat again and rubs her thumb on Maura's hip.

Maura pulls her robe tighter around herself, self-conscious that she is still un-showered and in her pajamas when everyone around her is dressed and… gorgeous. "Excuse me," she says, nodding to the group. "I'm just going to…" Her explanation dissipates into the atmosphere as greetings continue around her.

Jane watches her wife step quickly out of the room, fully aware of what is going on in that complex brain of hers. She can't wait to remind Maura how beautiful she is. She glances at the clock on the wall. Twenty three and a half hours.

* * *

The sky is overcast, but the air is humid. At Dylan's urging, Maura had put on her new swim suit and a cotton wrap. She sits at the table on the patio, watching her family eat a barbeque lunch and chatter around her. The heat penetrates the patio in a way you don't typically expect from an overcast day; everyone is in beach attire, wearing as little clothing as possible. Jane, Frankie, and Tommy sip beers. Angela and Jillian sip pina coladas. Maura is allowing herself a glass of water, some fruit, and a cup of yogurt.

"I don't like hot dogs," Dylan is telling Angela.

Angela is holding a hot dog on the end of her fork, hovering it over Dylan's plate. "You used to love hot dogs."

"Not anymore. I don't want to eat animal eyeballs." Dylan proceeds to point at TJ and say, "You're eating animal eyeballs! Ewww!"

"Dylan," Maura says. "If you don't want to eat the hot dog, you don't have to. But that's a personal decision and it is not nice to badger others for making a decision that is not the same as yours. Please apologize to your cousin."

"Sorry," Dylan mutters. She tilts her head toward the ground, baseball cap covering most of her face.

"Yeah," TJ says, and then sticks his tongue out at Dylan.

"Hey, buddy," Tommy yells. "Get your butt over here and stop being mean to Dill Pickle."

"She was mean first! And she's a copy-cat." TJ points to the Red Sox cap covering his dark hair.

"Am not!" Dylan squeals.

Maura and Jane make eye contact across the table, and then Jane turns to glare at Tommy.

"Dylan," Maura beckons, patting the chair next to her. Dylan stalks toward her mom.

"Dude," Tommy says to TJ. "She apologized. And just because you're older doesn't mean everything she does is copying you. Dill Pickle's been a Sox fan since almost as long as you have. Am I right, Dill?"

Dylan settles next to Maura with an empty plate. "Ya. My whole entire life, ever since I was a baby. I even went to a game with Mama and we got free ice cream because Mama knew all the answers to the questions."

Nobody quite understands what Dylan means, but nobody asks for an explanation. TJ sulks to Tommy's end of the table. A cool breeze carries sounds from the beach: seagulls squacking, children laughing, waves crashing. The group eats in a few moments of silence.

Dylan crosses her ankles, tiny legs swinging above the ground. She sighs heavily and then squints up at Maura. "Can I have some of your fruit, Mommy?"

"How do you ask nicely?"

"May I _please _have some fruit?"

"You sure may." Maura spoons some banana, cantaloupe, watermelon, and berries onto her daughter's plate.

"Thank you!"

Jane shakes her head in fond affection, watching her girls from the grill.

Dylan picks up a cube of melon with her fingers and then asks Maura with a full mouth, "What is badger?"

Maura takes a sip of water, slowly translating her definition of the word to the language of a six-year-old. "To badger someone or something is to harass or constantly annoy that person or thing. For instance…" Maura glances up at Jane, who is smiling across the table. "When Mama forgets to feed Jo Friday, and Jo wakes us up in the morning, barking, because she's so hungry? Jo is _badgering_ us."

"Oh." Dylan says, nodding. "I love cantloupe." She pops another cube in her mouth.

"So, Jillian," Angela says. "What do you do?"

Jillian is mid-bite, and takes a minute to chew and swallow. "Sorry. I'm a pediatric nurse."

"That's cool," Jane says. "Maura's a doctor."

"Oh, really?" Jillian glances at Maura, and then looks back to Jane. "So, like, what kind of products do you use on your hair? That wave looks so effortless."

"It really is… effortless. I use shampoo. And it air-dries."

Jillian's jaw drops. "Get out."

"I… am out," Jane says with a grin on her face. Maura smiles at the joke. Frankie rolls his eyes.

"No, but really," Jillian says again. "You don't use anything?"

"Nope."

"Okay, but you work out, right? I mean, your body is like…"

"Of course she works out," Frankie interrupts, pushing his plate away from him. "She's a police officer. Hey babe, you wanna take the kids down to the beach with me?"

"Oh. Sure!" Jillian claps her hands.

TJ and Dylan both look up from their plates.

"Dill," Jane says. "Finish your fruit and I'll walk down there with you. I don't trust these two bozos to get you suncreened up." She jacks a thumb in the direction of her brothers.

While Dylan and TJ shove their mouths full in an attempt to clean their plates, Jane walks around the table to Maura. She pulls her wife's hair over the top of the chair so it hangs towards the ground, and begins to massage her shoulders. Maura watches Jillian watch Jane, and Jane sees it, too.

"How come you don't ever massage me like that?" Jillian says to Frankie.

Frankie shoots Jane a "thank you very much" look.

Jane smirks back.

Frankie says, "This is not an appropriate conversation to have surrounded by my mother and siblings. Let's go." He waves for the kids to follow.

"I'll catch up with you," Jane says.

TJ and Dylan grab their towels and a smattering of footsteps descend to the beach, leaving Jane and Maura alone at the table. Angela gathers the plates into a pile and steps through the patio door, into the kitchen.

"We'll be back for dinner, okay?" Jane says.

Maura nods, her eyes closing. Jane's lean fingers are working her shoulders into a heavenly place, and it takes every ounce of will not to turn her head and kiss her wife.

"How many hours now?" Jane reads her mind.

"Twenty-one."

Jane leans, hovering behind her wife. She exhales near her ear. "Are you sure?"

Maura swallows, nodding. She doesn't trust her voice.

"Okay. You're the boss." Jane stands, and Maura feels her absence like the sun has set.

"Can we go for a walk later?" Maura asks.

Jane grabs the sunblock and another towel. "I would love to."

* * *

When the clan goes down to the water, Maura stays and helps Angela clean up the mess from lunch. The two of them are used to these roles, and they work around each other with great ease. Only twenty minutes have passed before everything is washed down and tidied up. They flip through Yelp and finally settle on a restaurant for dinner. Maura calls in reservations. Then, Angela takes the camera and a jug of lemonade down to the water, and Maura is once again left alone to rest.

The sun is low on the horizon when Maura finally hears the patio door slide open. "Babe?" Jane's voice calls.

Maura greets her wife at the bottom of the stairs. "Hi."

"Hi," Jane smiles. Her hair is caked in sand. "Did you get some rest?"

"Yes. Looks like you got some... sand."

"Oh, yeah." Jane tilts her head like she's about to shake her hair out.

"Not in here!" Maura says. She shoos her wife back to the door.

"You ready to walk?" Jane calls, her head upside down, fingers tangled in her hair.

Maura fixes the tie of her wrap. She doesn't bother with sandals. "Ready when you are."

* * *

The women stop at the Rizzoli family camp of towels and beach toys. At Dylan's pleading, Maura loses her wrap and spins in a circle for the family to admire the new swim suit, which Dylan had helped her pick out.

Jane's eyes trail her wife's skin, wishing her hands could follow. Before long, she has Maura by the waist, guiding her to the water, towards the sun, away from her family. They don't get free time, alone, together, often. But now, her mom has Dylan. She has Maura and the sunset. She is not letting these minutes go to waste.

"It is SO COLD," Maura says. She is tugging at her wife's hand the way she had watched her daughter tug at it the day before-away from the water.

But Jane doesn't give in to her. "Maur, come on. You'll get used to it. I know this vacation has sucked for you, but I'm not letting you go home without walking in the water a little bit."

Maura sticks out her lower lip, pointing at the goosebumps on her arm.

"Please, babe? With me?"

A white wave laps against their knees, and Maura squeals.

Jane's dimples deepen in amusement. She holds out her arm and Maura tucks herself into her wife's side. They walk slowly for a few minutes, feet dragging in the water. They watch the sky change from blue to lavender.

Maura speaks first. "If I didn't feel so disinclined to assume others' sexualities, I would wonder if Jillian were into women."

Jane snorts, "And if she's not, no doubt my brother's enough to turn her."

"Jane."

"Sorry."

"Did you see the way she was looking at you?"

"What? No way," Jane says. "I was too busy thinking about how beautiful my _wife_ is."

Maura stops walking. She purses her lips and squints her eyes at Jane's perfect response. Too perfect. "I went three days without showering. I was vomiting and diarrhetic for two of those days. I haven't even exercised or, or done _anything_ slightly attractive in over seventy-two hours!"

"Maur," Jane hushes. She pulls her wife into a hug, their bikini-clad bodies flesh against each other. Maura laughs into her wife's chest—at herself, at the situation, at how cold her legs are despite the scorching hot air. "I'm sorry. I know I'm being ridiculous. I just hate being sick. I hate not being able to be active with you and Dylan, and I hate not being able to spend quality time with the family. It's so rare these days, and I just... I miss it. I had all of these fun activities planned..."

"I know. You haven't been this out-of-commission in a really long time. You're dealing with it really well, though."

Maura leans back to look up at Jane. "Thanks."

"I'm going to kiss you now." Jane leans in.

Maura's palm presses against her wife's face. She smiles big, teasing. "Jane! It's not safe yet."

"How about now?" Jane mumbles into Maura's palm.

Maura shakes her head, grinning. "Fifteen hours." She feels Jane's lips purse against the softness of her palm, and her knees threaten to melt beneath her.

"Now?"

"No!" But Maura is laughing, and lowering her hand.

Jane leans in, but Maura, feeling playful, pulls away again, leaning to the side. "Woman!" Jane says, frustrated now.

Maura sees the hint of a grin on her wife's face. She lifts her hands and says, "Okay, okay."

Jane eyes her. She clasps her hand around the skin of Maura's waist as if to say "don't you dare do that again." Maura's hands rests on Jane's chest, thumbs brushing her neck, lips parted and waiting.

But neither of them have noticed that in their play, they have stepped further into the water. Just as Maura is about to give in to her wife, a wave crashes against their legs. Maura loses her balance first. Jane, in an attempt to keep Maura upright, throws her hands out to find only air. They fall into the water in a tangle of limbs and white wash.

The salt water sprays around them, and then the ocean goes silent as the waves lull, and the current draws them away from the shore. Jane hovers over her wife as water moves around them. Maura's thigh is pressed between her legs. Jane has never felt so desperate.

Maura strains her neck until their lips finally clash, immediately parting for familiar tongues. Water laps against their bodies, pushing and pulling in every direction. Maura's arms wrap around her wife's neck, and her ankles hook behind Jane's back. Jane pulls them upright just as another wave crashes against them.

Maura squeals again, hugging Jane tighter.

"I got you," Jane says into her wife's salty neck.

Forehead against forehead. Slippery skin on slippery skin. Rapid heartbeat with rising pulse. And then they are engulfed in each other with four days of pent-up, Florida heated passion. Maura's hands are tangled in Jane's wet hair. Jane's hands grip the backs of her wife's thighs, the bob of the water helping to hold her in place. They move with the waves, separating only so Jane can glance at the water during the lulls.

"You know what I'd do right now," Jane says to her wife's mouth, "if my family wasn't up-shore?"

"Mmm..." Maura hums into Jane's upper lip.

"I'd take us deeper into the water..." She lets her tongue slip down her wife's neck. "...and I'd take you right here."

Maura groans.

"But that wouldn't be a very civil thing for a police officer to do, would it?"

Maura hums, smiling to the sky. "But it would be hot."

"It would be very, very hot."

* * *

Back up the beach, TJ has stopped digging in the sand to glare into the now-orange sky. He makes out two silhouetted figures, waist-deep in the high tide.

"Gross!" he says to Dylan. "Your moms are kissing!"

Dylan shrugs. "Kissing means love. Growed-up mommies are supposed to do that."

"Ya, but it's still gross."

She knows she's not supposed to say mean things. She knows she's supposed to make good choices. But Dylan's moms are her favorite people in the whole wide world. So she turns to her scrawny cousin and says, "You're gross," and then throws her toy to the sand and walks toward the water.

* * *

The Rizzoli family clan is exhausted by the end of the hike up the hill at the park down the road from the beach house. The adults drop bags of snacks and water bottles and fan out, looking for the best place to camp for the fireworks. Maura, oblivious to what everyone else is doing, takes a blanket from the bag on Jane's shoulder and spreads it under a large Jacaranda tree near the apex of the hill. She smashes a padded backrest against the trunk of the tree and settles against it.

"Dylan," she calls. "Come here."

Dylan climbs into Maura's lap. Maura wraps her arms around her daughter and breathes in the fresh clothes and quickly disappearing but still intoxicating scent of her baby girl.

"May I braid your hair for you?"

"Ya! Only one braid, though. I don't want two braids." Dylan fingers her wet curls.

"Okay, I'll only do one. Turn around." Maura pats the spot in front of her, and Dylan crosses her legs away from her mom.

"Hey Maur?" Jane calls from the pile of bags that Frankie and Tommy had dropped twenty feet away.

"Hmm," Maura hums with a bobby pin between her lips.

"I don't think you'll be able to see the fireworks from under that tree." Jane points at the overhanging branches.

Maura's hands pause in Dylan's hair. She looks up, and then straight out over the park, and then glances at Jane before returning to the braid. She finishes the braid, bobby pins a couple of stray curls, and then squeezes her daughter into a tight, slightly ticklish hug before releasing her.

Dylan giggles and jumps up. As she runs away, she yells looking over her shoulder, "You can't get me, Mommy!"

Maura smiles at Dylan and then says to Jane, "I think we're high enough that we'll be looking out more than we will up. The angle from here to where I conjecture the fireworks will explode is really not all that obtuse."

"Mommy!"

"Alright," Jane says. "Whatever you say. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Mooooooooommmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyy! You're supposed to chaaaaaase meeee!"

"I can't chase you, sweetie," Maura says to her pouty girl. "Not yet."

Dylan's arms fall to her sides as she starts a slow trudge towards Maura, ready to collapse into a heap of sadness in her mother's lap. "Why not?"

But Jane jumps in between her two girls, yelling, "Because you're too busy running from meeee!" Jane's arms are lifted, her face distorted into her best monster face. "Aaaaarrrrrghhh!"

Dylan screams and bolts down the hill.

"Not too far!" Maura yells after them.

TJ plops next to Maura, both their pairs of eyes trained forward. "Dylan's a slow runner," he says. "Aunt Jane could totally catch her if she was actually trying."

"Oh, hush. Dylan is six and in the lower height range for her age. She should hit a growth spurt soon. And what's the fun in playing chase if the monster catches you before you even get an endorphin hit?"

TJ blinks at his aunt and then stands. "I'm gunna go find my dad."

* * *

"Put. Them. Away." Jane is staring down her little brother, and staring him down _hard_.

"Jane. They are _sparklers_."

"Tommy? Those are not sparklers. Sparklers are little guys on sticks. _Those _are fireworks. They are ILLEGAL."

"Come _on_, Jane!" He's one step away from stomping his feet and pouting.

"No." Jane flips her hair and crosses her arms across her chest.

"Frankie." Tommy turns to their brother.

Frankie's busy have eying sex with Jillian, who is sprawled on the blanket with a grin on her face. "Sorry, man."

"Ma?"

"Oh, Janie. You kids used to do your own fireworks all the time growing up."

Jane covers her face with her hands and grumbles into them, trying to clear her head and simmer her frustration. She looks up. "I have so many things to say right now, Ma, but the main things are that, A) We are not kids anymore, B) We now have kids to whom we need to teach the differences between right and wrong, and C) Frankie and I are both cops and just _can't_ allow blatant illegal activity." She turns to Tommy. "There are trees everywhere. It's not safe. There will be a perfectly good firework show in like, twenty minutes. Just sit your ass down and wait for it."

Tommy grabs the bag from the table and begins to strut down the hill. "TJ!" he calls.

TJ spins from where he is talking to Dylan.

"Come on! Let's go find some pavement!"

"Yeah!" TJ jumps up and runs towards his father.

"Oh, nice!" Jane says to his back.

Tommy raises his hand without looking over his shoulder.

Jane groans. She stands in defeat for a minute while Frankie sits back down on the blanket next to Jillian, and Angela walks over to Dylan. Jane's eyes find her wife, who is sitting alone under the tree, watching her.

"I swear," Jane says as she saunters up to Maura. "Talking to Tommy is like talking to a toddler with his ears plugged yelling LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU."

Maura chuckles. "I was impressed by your correct use of the word 'whom.'"

"Thanks, I learn from the best." Jane looks lovingly down at her wife. "Scootch forward?"

And a smile expands from Maura's lips to her eyes as she bends her legs and scoots.

Jane lowers herself between Maura and the tree. She wraps her arms around her wife, who relaxes back into her.

"Tell me if I'm squishing you," Maura says. Her cheek is at Jane's jaw—the bottom of her skull in the space between Jane's neck and shoulder.

Jane turns her lips into Maura's cheek, "Oh, yeah. All one hundred pounds of you are killing me."

"One hundred and eighteen point five."

Jane presses her lips against her wife's face. She squeezes her arms and Maura closes her eyes and they rock for a long moment, loving the feel of each other.

The lights in the park dim.

"The fireworks are starting!" the women hear Angela yell from a little down the hill.

"She has Dylan, right?" Maura says quietly, her eyes only peeking open just to close again.

"Yeah."

A speaker attached to a light post nearby crackles to life. _Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages… get ready for the most explosive event of the season… _One lone Roman Candle shoots into the air and explodes in a burst of gold. Jane bites her tongue at the dirty joke floating through her mind and waits for her wife to make a comment about being right about the angle from the tree—but it never comes. The _boom _follows a moment later. Slowly, music fills the air and a colorful series of Peony fireworks appear in the navy sky.

It only takes a few minutes for Dylan and Angela to trudge up the hill to the tree. Dylan is in tears with her hands over her ears and Angela's face is blank.

"She doesn't like the sound," Angela shrugs.

Dylan plops into Maura's lap and curls into a ball, much like she had a couple of mornings earlier, when they had found Maura hunched over the toilet bowl. Maura links her fingers around Dylan's bottom and puts her chin at the start of the braid she had just woven.

Jane shifts, reaching her hand to smooth Dylan's cheek since Maura's hands are occupied.

"You know, sweetie," Maura says to the little ear pressed against her chest. "Those big booms are really just tiny cardboard shells. The explosion is just the release of gas due to a chemical burning reaction."

"They are?" Dylan asks Maura's cleavage.

And Maura thinks she's never heard a sound so sweet and so tender in her life. She knows that Dylan doesn't understand what she has just said, but she also knows that sometimes, like herself when she was younger, hearing the explanation of how things work-even just knowing that there is an explanation, a reason, a cause-makes those same things much less scary for her daughter.

"They really are," she affirms.

Dylan's hand sneaks up Maura's tank top and rests on her warm belly. Maura closes her eyes and inhales the scents of her baby girl, soaking in the intimacy that had become increasingly rare as Dylan gets older and learns about boundaries and respecting others' bodies.

"It looks like they're gunna fall on us," Dylan says, her face still pressed into Maura's chest.

"No way, Jose," Jane says, and waits for the response she knows will come.

"Hey, I'm not Jose," Dylan says shyly.

And Jane and Maura both smile—Maura, into the underside of Jane's jaw, pressing soft lips where she knows her wife loves them. She then tilts her head to Dylan's. "Do you know how high up in the air those fireworks are?"

Dylan sniffs, her fingers tracing patterns across her mom's hip. "No."

"They are _one thousand five hundred feet_ in the air. They're practically in the clouds."

Dylan's hand stills and then pulls away as she shifts her body so she can see the fireworks again. Somewhere not so far away, the music crackles into a jazzy rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

Maura continues, "Do you think they could fall _all the way _from waaaaaayy up there?"

"Maybe not," Dylan says.

Maura hugs her closer. "That's right, babygirl. Maybe not."

And the three of them just sit and hug each other through the climax of the show.

At one point, Jane slaps Maura's arm.

Maura lifts off her wife to look at her, consequently moving Dylan as well. "Ow!" Maura says.

Jane shrugs. "Mosquito."

Dylan giggles, and they relax again. As the last of the Glitter Palms dissipate into the atmosphere, Dylan straightens her torso and says, "I'm gunna go see if Nana wants me to braid _her_ hair."

"Be gentle," Maura says. She pats her daughter on the bottom, and Dylan sprints away.

All around them, people are standing, stretching, yawning, bending to pack up their things. Children are running in circles, using up the last of their energy before they collapse into sobbing messes.

Jane breathes into her wife's temple. "You're the best mom, you know that?"

"Mhmm," Maura hums, turning her head to Jane's. She lifts her hand to cup her wife's cheek and pulls Jane's lips down to hers.

Jane breaks the kiss. "You're supposed to say: No, _you're _the best mom."

"What, just because we're both women means I have to give up my inherent right to being the best mom?"

Jane is about to make a face, but Maura doesn't let her. She twists her body even more so that their mouths can make full contact. Jane's hand finds the warm sliver of skin on her wife that Dylan had left exposed and pushes under and across the hem of Maura's cotton shirt.

"How tired are you?" Jane rasps between kisses.

"Not too tired to make love to you tonight," Maura whispers back.

"No?"

"Never." Maura's hands find Jane's hair and suddenly they are fighting for control.

"Get a room!" Tommy yells.

And the kiss breaks, both women breathing heatedly into each other's mouths before turning to see their entire family watching them.

"I think they're a totally hot couple," Jillian says to Frankie.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go," Frankie says.

"Ma!" Jane yells. "Can you take Dill? We'll be right behind you."

Angela waves.

Maura leans into her original position, her back against Jane's chest. They watch their family gather the bags and start down the hill.

"Can we do this more often?" Jane says into Maura's ear. Her hand slips back up the front of Maura's shirt and rests on her belly.

"If you're willing to take more time off work, yes."

"Oh, says the woman who just spent her entire vacation reading scientific journal articles directly related to her line of work."

Maura raises a finger into the air to emphasize her point. "That doesn't count. I was sick."

"You loved it."

"Maybe." Maura turns her head to nuzzle her face into Jane's neck. "I definitely love you, though."

Jane sighs. "I love you, too."


End file.
